Wednesday, 30 March 2011

The C-Word

No, I'm not being rude again. When I did a run down on last year and a wants list for this year I picked collaboration as one of the things that I wanted to do more of.

So far I've done lots of it and it's all quite exciting really. From holding events and launches at The Rake that other people have made together to going and brewing with various breweries and making friends along the way.
So? I hear you ask. What the heck do I care if you've been whoring yourself out to breweries?
Well you should. So there.
Collaboration is the buzz of 2011 just as 2010 was all about Black IPA's.
Why is it buzzing though?
Could the answer be as simple as together we are stronger? I think it just might be you know. After all, the old way was to either slag competitors off or just mostly ignore their presence and hope that you were doing enough to keep your customers coming back.
Here's a few recent examples of successful nights(certainly in The Rake) :
1) M&M Porter Launch - Melissa Cole and 'Markstar' Tranter of Dark Star do a four pub crawl, comprising of The Rake, Cask Pub and Kitchen, The Euston Tap and The White Horse.
2) Motley Brew Launch - as I'm sure you're aware by now I've been down to Pontypridd to brew with the Otley boys a few times now and when we launched the first one, one Monday night, we started something that has become a big of a monster.
3) Otley again - this time Adrian Tierney-Jones Saison Obscura is launched with another crawl. This time between beery meccas The White Horse, Cask, The Rake and The Southampton Arms in Euston.
There are two launches at The Rake in the next six days both results of collaboration. Firstly the Brewdog Avery, Brown, Dredge Imperial Pilsner gets simultaneously launched at North Bar in Leeds, The Jolly Butchers in Stoke Newington and at The Rake. Then on Monday the ladies get involved with the Venus Jade launch which is getting a lot of twitter chat at the moment.

4) Did I even forget to mention the London Brewers Alliance, I did didn't I! Brewers from breweries as big as Fullers to as small as Kernel all working together and doing amazing work in the process!
Is it just about the launches and the breweries though? Nope, there have been examples of sharing things like coupler heads between us beery types, people are more and more willing to help each other with things like this. Partly because we all drink in each others establishments (when time allows) and we all know each other. London is becoming the new San Francisco and that's exciting, in fact, I will go so far as to say IT ROCKS!

It's great to be part of the scene as London becomes one of the most exciting beer cities in the world and remember...Together we are stronger.